See, that almost never happens for me. I can have double the culture of anyone else, be surrounding a city of theirs with my superior way of life, and it avails me nothing. Course, if you have enough military units in a city, it won't defect...and I'm also only playing with patch 1.17f, which could be a problem, but I can't be assed downloading the latest one...although, now that I've said that, I'm going to.

Update: I'm kicking much ass with the Persians, and I've absorbed about 5 Zimbabwean cities through my far superior culture. I have so much more than anyone else I'd say a cultural victory is possible. I also patched the game to 1.29f, and it's heaps better - no barbarians means no free techs for me, but it also really fucks over expansionist civs who really get an early advantage. So suck shit to them, because I'm a world leader now baby .

Which brings me to the reason why I have'nt been here lately, as I've been playing MOO3 pretty much constantly for the last two weeks... and i mean constantly, the only time i've turned my system off or even quit/closed the game in the last two weeks was about five hrs ago after installing Beyond Divinity, which I'm about to play after i go looking for any patches for it and some other games i bought today. EB Games had a sale on the same day my copy of B. D. that i've had reserved for so fucking long, so i geuss it's a good thing i had to wait so fucking long as i managed to pick up Beyond Divinty, Breed and Deus Ex for just over a hundred buck's.
But back to MOO3, I've yet to get up to 700 turns and/or past lvl 40 for tech before having my fine arse handed to me or about to get my fine arse handed to me and starting again before it happens.but I think I'm onto a winner with this game as I'm seven tech lvl's ahead of the next race and i've just put Titan sized orbitals and system ships on all my planets.... and no I'm not cheating* I'm playing on normal difficulty and kicking ass... for now.

EB Games had a sale on the same day my copy of B. D. that i've had reserved for so fucking long, so i geuss it's a good thing i had to wait so fucking long as i managed to pick up Beyond Divinty, Breed and Deus Ex for just over a hundred buck's.

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I love Beyond Divinity. Sure there are bugs and the sys-requirements are a bit high for a game with 2d backgrounds but still this is a great game. Interesting skill system, good chracter customization and at least *SOME* tactics, unlike other games.

Speaking of tactical games, I remember I spoke with Canis on Larian forums about Baldur's Gate 2 which she didn't like. She told me to ask about people's opinions on Terra Arcanum. So, do you people really dislike BG2?

Having loved most Bioware games (MDK2, BG1, BG1 exp, BG2, BG2 exp, haven't played KotOR), I would disagree.
NWN was awful, though. Not only blocky characters, de-saturated colours and lack of any RPG elements but it also had a sucky storyline.

Specifically, I found it very annoying being asked to do a heap of quests, including that gnoll castle and that mine, with shitty combat skills, zero spells and a handful of hitpoints. I don't care if I have 6 or half a dozen level 1 characters with me - I'm still facing a shitload of gnolls, any one of which can kill me in a single hit, and which give shit all experience. I found it impossible to level, complete any quests or generally achieve anything worthwhile. And no, I didn't quit the game because it was too hard, but it takes 1000 experience points to get to level 2 yes? Most things you have a hope of killing at level 1 give you about 15 experience...which means something on the order of about 70 kills to hit level 2. When you've only got 12 hit points, resting for 8 hours restores 1 of them and you're on a quest of supposed urgency, it kind of ruins any sort of fun or immersion factor for me.

Conclusion? BG sucked balls. I even had a look at the sample party from the Sword Coast expansion, who were supposedly near the end of the game, and they were level 6. Sorry, I am not playing my way through an apparently 'epic' game for less than half a dozen levels.

BG2 is actually pretty good, or so I think at least. I've never really played the original BG, and when I finally had the opportunity (long after I'd completed BG2), I wasn't impressed at all. Everything seemed worse compared with the sequel, and I never bothered going further than leaving the first town.

The big problem is that the games were based on 2nd edition D&D. That system should never had been invented... :x